Googlefights: Manga Edition!

Goku vs Spider-Man

Tohru Honda vs Sakura Kinomoto

Hatsumi Narita vs Tanpopo Yamazaki

Himura Kenshin vs Naruto Uzumaki

Sgt Keroro vs Planet Earth

That poor frog ... never any luck.

I blame Lyle. And Ian. And Dave.

Advance!

Think you've got the skills to review manga (and aren't already doing so on a regular basis)? Anime News Network is looking for a manga reviewer in the Montreal area (that's where their HQ is based).

With some help from AoD's prying eyes, Love Manga spots a bunch of new releases. Viz continues their complete and utter mastery of shoujo by promising Ultra Maniac, by Marmalade Boy creator Wataru Yoshizumi, and Tokyo Boys and Girls by Hot Gimmick creator Miki Aihara. Del Rey has cover art up for Genshiken and Nodame Cantabile.

Some interesting things off Thought Balloons today: a manga thief who tried to sell the stolen volumes at used bookstores, and a wide-eyed look at the Tokyo branch of Mandarake. I would like to politely request that no one ever take me there lest I bankrupt myself.

It looks like Cognitive Dissonance and AoD are both of a negative mind about Taiyo Matsumoto's Blue Spring. While I didn't necessarily dislike the book, I found that it didn't live up to the praise that was being thrown around about Matsumoto in general. The squishy art and exaggerated characters were intriguing for their sheer "what the hell" factor, but the storytelling was too disjointed -- an ordeal in itself. Maybe I should try Black and White or No. 5 and give him another chance.

But, what the heck. You could go to Mangascreener and read Me and the Devil Blues, about blues guitarist Robert Johnson. Or Mohiro Kitoh's short stories -- manga about schoolkids who are far more ordinary, but just as captivating.

At the store

Who likes charts? I do! Love Manga has parsed Diamond's Top 100 GN sales to determine how well manga sells. Although it doesn't dominate the top spots, there's a strong undercurrent in the 50-100 positions. Further explanations at the site.

Calling all retailers! David @ Precocious Curmudgeon is gathering up info for a future Flipped column and wishes to know, from first-hand experience, how well manga sells.

Polite Dissent might enjoy this one: according to MNS, a manga called Dr. Koto's Clinic "has been responsible for a recent medical themed manga boom in Japan."

Never in doubt

Ah, what would we do without Viz's shoujo releases? PreCur checks out Doubt!!, an ugly-duckling-turned-swan comedy.

Love Manga catches some potential new releases from Viz, including:
Full Moon wo Sagashite (magical girl ... with cancer)
Cain (ties in with Godchild, one of the new Shôjo Beat titles)
Ouran Host Club
Genbu Kaiden
And yeah, like Immelda said, this wouldn't be the first time that Viz titles suddenly pop up on online retailers without the publisher formally announcing it. It's annoying when they do that!

"Westernized manga" isn't everyone's style, but it's Nathan Maurer's, as the Comic Book Bin interviews the winner of Tokyopop's 3rd "Rising Stars of Manga" contest and creator of Atomic King Daidogan.

Oh noez! Japanese manga retailer Mandarake is turning into the manga equivalent of a fanboy comic book store.

In the flagship stores in larger cities it focuses on the extreme Otaku market, stocking a large number of doujinshi, cells and premium items, while its stores in other cities focus on more mainstream items. Overall the stores sales of books and other publications is decreasing, while its "otaku" sales have increased.

That's sad.

Goodbye to Goku?!

Jagged*Team notes that the US edition of Shônen Jump will cease serialization of Dragonball Z after this latest issue. The rest of the series will be published as bimonthly graphic novels.

Also from J*T (and through Love Manga) comes a list of new releases from DR Master (formerly ComicsOne):
888
King of Fighters 2003 (based on videogame. Title pretty much says what it's about)
Category Freak
Hinado Girl
Mani Girls
Stellvia (All the charm of Cardcaptor Sakura, all the boarding-school antics of Harry Potter ... IN SPACE!)
Tori Koro
Tsukihime (Vampires! High schoolers! Where's the TV show? oh, it's being released by Geneon.)

Actually, just go read everything on Love Manga right now, they've got a bunch of reviews up.

Wow, a MNS news bit that I can actually link to! Here's an interview with Yukito Kishiro, creator of Battle Angel Alita / Gunnm. And yes ... of course the first thing on everyone's mind is James Cameron.

Here's Completely Futile with more manga rarities. Dude, I'd go for anything with a title like Oingo Boingo Brothers Adventure ...

Linking to Time and Newsweek? What's this world coming to?

Newsweek checks out the book/manga/movie/phenonmenon Densha Otoko and muses on Japanese geek culture (okay, otaku, but I'm still ambivalent about the connotations of the word). "Japan's 2.8 million otaku spend $2.7 billion a year on DVDs, comics and fantasy figures modeled after anime characters. Their Internet literacy and networking habits make them hugely influential, beyond mere purchasing power."

Brill Building thinks about it too, with an American perspective.

Meanwhile, Andrew Arnold, he of Time.comix, goes to the oldest of old-school and reviews The Four Immigrants Manga.

And there's another chapter of Yuuto available! (It's a weekly series, so expect frequent updates.)